


These steps you take

by ionia



Category: Batman (Comics), Superman (Comics)
Genre: Early Relationship, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, POV Bruce Wayne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:06:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29177676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ionia/pseuds/ionia
Summary: Bruce makes Clark pancakes. They share experiences on an early morning.
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne (mentioned)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 86





	These steps you take

**Author's Note:**

> Another morning after at Clark’s apartment, because I love those.
> 
> This one is a culmination of me making pancakes for breakfast, and remembering some specific comic panels about Bruce's cooking skills (see end note).

It was an unusually early morning for Bruce, and Clark was still asleep next to him, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore. Clark’s apartment, a forced night off, and a mind restless with unsolved cases all played a part in this, and so much so, that it was one of those rare mornings that he got out of bed before Clark, quietly and careful not to wake him. 

In the living room, he scrolled through some work emails on his phone and Oracle’s backlog of cases from last night, until he knew exactly what everyone had been up to. The light outside was still faint and grey and not quite dark-blue, and some of the windows in the city had coloured yellow with light. A pair of feet shuffled around in the apartment above Clark's. A child started crying in an apartment on the other side of the hallway. Breakfast seemed like a good idea. 

Clark’s kitchen was small, and messy, but the counter was clean. Bruce located a bowl, flour, milk, eggs, butter, and a scale that he wasn’t sure Clark ever used. He used a whisk to mix ingredients, as to not wake Clark up, although to be fair, he should be able to wake up from a sound that small if necessary. Shortly after, he was flipping the first pancakes with a practiced flick of his wrist, and looked satisfied at the golden-brown colour of the three somewhat-round cakes. It had been a while. 

He made sure not to burn any, but also not to undercook them, patiently waiting for them to solidify, start bubbling, change colour. He stacked them onto a plate before pouring more batter in the pan. Lost in concentration, he didn't hear Clark enter, but there he was, with a stretch and a yawn. In his flannel checkered pyjama pants, hanging low on his hips, and his black hair, sticking up in a wonderfully soft mess, more so than Bruce’s own. After a quick glance, Bruce returned his attention to the pancakes, and felt Clark’s bare chest touching his bicep. He hugged Bruce, kissed his ear, and Bruce allowed him to turn his face to kiss his mouth, even though they had just spent the whole night next to each other. 

“Hey, good morning,” Clark smiled. 

“Morning.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“You know I always sleep better after sex with you.” It was their game of catch and return, this. Replies to put them two steps ahead of each other, a set-up for the next quip. Most people would call it flirting, and whatever it was, it kept Bruce on his toes, and Clark never missed a beat. 

“Hmm, my true superpower,” he smiled, and then, finally, looked down at the stovetop. “Pancakes? Smells delicious.” Clark’s warmth at his side was unsurprising, yet overwhelming on a cold morning, and Bruce hadn’t realized the cold of the floor under his bare feet had seeped into his body. He let himself relax a little against Clark.

“You’re warm.” 

“The bed was warm. I mean, metaphorically it was cold because you weren’t there anymore… Do you think I should change the covers already?”

“Hmm. Do you have blueberries? I couldn’t find them.”

“Freezer.”

“That’s where I looked.”

Clark looked over at the freezer at the bottom of the fridge, his eyes going glassy for just a second. “They’re there. Kind of at the back.” He squatted down to open it and dug out pizzas, frozen veggies, and casserole dishes that surely came from Kansas, until he got to the blueberries. “Here you go.”

“Put them in the batter, we can still have one half with blueberries. You change your blanket? Why?”

“Um, force of habit, I guess? Ma always put thick covers and a wool blanket on my bed back home in the winter, even though I never actually needed it.” Keeping up appearances, a form of pretend-normalcy, then. Little habits that made Clark more human than his powers could ever make him alien. “I told her, but she insisted… every little detail had to be right. Hiding who I was even at home, in my own room… I mean, you never knew…” 

“If anyone would ever see something out of the ordinary?”

“Yes,” Clark sighed. He leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms. The pan sizzled, batter slowly solidifying again. 

“She’s smart, your mother,” Bruce said. 

“Scared. They were always so scared someone would come take me away.”

“They were right to be… protecting you.”

“I know that.” He smiled apologetically. “Sorry. I had a good childhood, Bruce. I shouldn’t...”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t complain about it.” Another flip, and sizzle. “You don’t have to hide now, not here.”

Clark uncrossed his arms. “Thank you, B.” He hugged Bruce again, chin on his shoulder, and looked down at the stack of pancakes that were already finished and resting on a plate. “Hey, these actually look good… I haven’t smelled any burning… And here I thought you didn’t cook.”

“I don’t.”

“Bruce. You’re making pancakes. Don’t play tricks on me.”

“I don’t cook. I know how to make pancakes.” Clark looked at him, questioningly. _Go on_ , he motioned with the smallest jerk of his head and motion in his eyebrows. A personal story. Clark had just shared something personal. That’s what you do in a relationship, right? He poured another ladle of batter in the pan and cleared his throat.

“When Dick had just moved in with us… he woke up very early every day, earlier than Alfred, even. Maybe a circus thing, I think. I would hear him just… pacing outside of my room, not knowing what to do, too scared to wake me up, maybe.”

“But you heard him anyway?”

“Needless to say, I wasn’t sleeping much, back then.” 

“You don’t sleep much now.”

“Fine. I was barely sleeping at all.” Some days, he had been able to catch a couple hours of rest after Alfred took Dick to school. Most days, he ended up falling asleep in board meetings. He continued: “Whenever I heard him, I would get up, and take him down to the kitchen, where I would try to make pancakes, because Dick liked them. I… tried to make it like home, for him. Or, at least, to resemble the mornings he’d had with his parents.” 

“You learned how to make pancakes for Dick.” Clark stated.

“It took me a while to get it right.” Bruce remembered Dick patiently waiting at the kitchen island only to stare at his plate of burned, or undercooked, or completely messed up and mis-shapen pancakes with a blank expression when Bruce finally served them. _Thanks,_ he’d mumble, and would start eating them slowly anyway, before Bruce decided it was enough and dumped the rest in the trash, putting down a bowl of cereal for him instead. Until finally one morning, Dick’s blank expression had turned into a smile, humming along while eating his pancakes and then Bruce’s too. He had hugged Bruce after, exclaiming that he _shouldn’t change a single thing!_

It had felt like solving a case, one that he could easily crack all over again now that he knew the steps. He smiled at the memory and looked at Clark again. “At least a dozen mornings like that. But yes, I did. It helped.” 

“It did,” Clark said, with one of those sheepy grins on his face. “You’re an amazing dad, Bruce.”

“I doubt the children would agree with you.”

Clark angled his head and pursed his lips. “You could definitely vocalize a little bit more how you feel towards them, but they know.” Bruce huffed. He was not a good caretaker, not really. Alfred had said as much, in his Alfred-way, and Barbara, curt and to the point, and Dick, clear and unmistakable. “You’re dedicated,” Clark explained.

Some would call it obsession. Not Clark. Bruce tried a smile.

“So, just pancakes?”

“Just pancakes. When Dick started feeling more at home he started sleeping in more, and so did I. Alfred took over on breakfast again.” He flipped the last pancake out of the pan and onto the stack. “Done. Let’s eat.”

Clark zipped out of the room to get a shirt, got them each a glass of orange juice, and cleared the table before Bruce had reached it with their breakfast. 

Taking a bite of his first pancake with butter and maple syrup, Clark hummed. “I would almost say," and his voice dropped down to a whisper, "these are better than my mom’s."

“Don’t tell her that,” Bruce said, washing down his smile with a gulp of juice. Outside past the window, Metropolis lay quiet, shining under a blue sky and a rising sun. Clark looked out too, catching that light on his chin and closing his eyes. Clark, who rose with the sun but waited for dark to meet in the middle with Bruce, however long it took. Clark, who literally came to find him in the deepest darkest parts of his mind, who would gladly let Bruce pull him up to his feet after a hit even though he was the one with super strength, who was forced to live his life a 1000 miles a minute and still found the time to appreciate the world's beauty. If he weren’t here, Clark would have opened the window to really feel the sun, Bruce was sure. 

“Hm,” Clark swallowed another bite. “Any chance you’ll figure out how to make waffles for me? Or croissants?” Clark’s narrowed, smiling eyes didn’t disguise much. Another set-up, for more.

The reply, easy. Bruce only finished his bite properly to feign nonchalance, to tease. He put down his knife and fork, knowing he couldn’t fool Clark, not with the skip that his heart made. “Give me a couple more months of mornings like this one.” 

Clark’s retort, honest and uncalculated, was much faster. “Yes.” 

_Yes_. He could do that for Clark.

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, maybe you have seen those panels of Bruce making pancakes for Alfred, Dick, and Tim (Batman: Gotham Adventures #60, he says it’s his first time making them, but they come out perfect. Bruce you’re a liar, you’ve done this before). And at the same time, this man cannot make a tuna sandwich for the life of him ( _“How can you screw up a tuna sandwich? ...Oh. that’s how” :/_ \- Tim in Detective Comics #698). Anyway, this is why my Bruce can make pancakes and literally nothing else.
> 
> (yes I'm aware that's two different canons, come at me)


End file.
